A conventionally known gaming machine is configured such that: upon insertion of a game medium such as a coin and pressing of a spin button by a player, random values for symbol determination are extracted to determine symbols that are to be displayed to the player at a time of stopping of a plurality of video reels on a display; scrolling of a symbol array in each video reel is started; the scrolling is stopped for symbol rearrangement so that the determined symbols are displayed to the player; whether or not a combination of displayed symbols is a winning combination is determined; and if it is a winning combination, benefits according to the combination of symbols is awarded to the player.
In this type of gaming machine, triggered by winning of BB which is related to bonus activation, a number of payable game media that can be paid out in a bonus game is determined and set (for example, see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-20954). This gaming machine allows the player to play the bonus game until the number of payable game media that has been set is reached.
In this type of gaming machine, however, after the BB related to bonus activation is won, the player does nothing other than keep playing a game until the determined number of payable medals are paid out. That is, during the bonus activation, the player merely consumes payable game media, the number of which has been determined in advance. Thus, a variety of gaming patterns cannot be offered to the player in the bonus game.
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a gaming machine that is able to offer a variety of gaming patterns with avoidance of monotony during a free game that is a game played in a bonus game, by performing such a control as to rotate video reels in a manner different from the manner of rotation in a base game.